Abstract:

Stromatolites recorded the life activities of early environment, cyanobacteria and microbial community, and their growth morphology was influenced by the sedimentary environment, which is of great significance for the paleo-environmental reconstruction. Stromatolites from the Longjiayuan Formation (2^nd member)of the Mesoproterozoic Guandaokou Group in western Henan have various morphological types and concentrated in distribution, which is a typical area for stromatolites development. The distribution of stromatolites is closely related to global events, geochemical environment of the Precambrian ocean and the development of microbiolites, yet detailed research is still lacking. Based on this, we conducted a systematic field investigation and petrological examination on the microbialite structure on these stromatolites, studied the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of the stromatolites, established the sedimentary environment evolution and sedimentary model, and compared with the stromatolites from other areas. The results show that the macroscopic morphology of the stromatolites can be divided into horizontal laminae, ripple, hilly, cone, and column. Microscopically, the stromatolites are light and dark laminae, with few ooids, spherular and detrital materials locally. The shape and scale of stromatolites are closely related to the hydrodynamic conditions and water depth. Horizontal laminated stromatolites were developed in the intertidal zone, whilst corrugated and mound stromatolites were developed in the intertidal high-energy zone and low-energy zone. Meanwhile, cone and columnar stromatolites were developed in the subtidal zone. Our comprehensive analysis shows that our stromatolite samples were formed in a tidal-flat environment, and were influenced by the sedimentary evolution process of intertidal, subtidal and intertidal zones. It is beneficial to analyze the Early Mesoproterozoic development environment of microbiolites in the southern margin of North China. Besides, we compared our results with the sedimentary environment of microbiolites in Jixian area (northern margin of North China), in order to explore the relationship between marine environment, atmospheric environment, and microbiolites around the North China Craton.

Key words: stromatolite, Longjiayuan Formation, sedimentary environment, western Henan